Our Beautiful and Beloved “Whole-Souled Friend”

In Loving Memory of Eric Lowery, President of the Frederick Douglass Honor Society, 1948–2020

Abstract

Eric Lowery was a social justice campaigner, an equal-rights activist, and a visionary leader. In his life and life’s work, he lived as the embodiment of the ideal reformer, the beautiful individual who was dedicated to securing all social and political liberties—the inspirational individual whom Frederick Douglass always recognized and embraced as a “whole-souled friend.” As it was for Frederick Douglass, so it was for Eric Lowery: there was never any room for halfness. Across past, present, and future generations, Lowery joined Douglass in counseling us all to “work together” from all the “different sectors of life” and with our “whole souls” to see, to feel, and to understand the “need to improve our quality of life through the activities we do together.”